Results 1 to 22 of 22
-
2010-08-29, 01:03 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2005
- Location
- California, USA
- Gender
[4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
As a newer individual to 4th edition, I've started a guy's night game with very unexperienced players. After finishin the Shadowfell newbie training experience I've been thinking about starting them in a Dark Sun campaign. I've always enjoyed the setting but hoping I can avoid some pitfalls with some of your help.
-Where can I find good info on animal life? I bought the 4th campaign book and they mention a slew of fantasy life that replaced your basics like horses, cows, etc but not seeing where they go over what is what...
-What adventure problems should I look out for specific to this setting?
-What hooks work best? I already have planned arena fights/games and losing water in the sand wastes...
-What do you like/dislike about the setting?
-I heard to avoid the official Dark Sun adventure that was just printed....any other good sources I could use?
Oh and this could derail the thread a little but how do skill challenges work during combat? If it is a free action, can they do more than one on their turn?
Thanks ahead of time, still a 4e DM newb...Last edited by SandDemon; 2010-08-29 at 01:05 AM.
All of these below are ancient at this point... but good references of my own games I ran or participated in:
PbP Game List:
-
2010-08-29, 01:17 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2010
- Location
- in the playground.
- Gender
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
There's kes'treckles (sp?), Kanks, Mekillots, Inixes, etc. etc.
Dregoth'd be a nice plot hook, dunno what the books say about him, but Dregoth, Ravager of Giants, is a 29th level dragon Kaisharga (basically, he was killed before he could fully ascend to a dragon, but was raised by his first in command as a psionic-magic lich), and he plots against the one who caused his doom, Abalach-Re, and his superior Dray will surley lay waste to the whole anarchic city-state. And he will soon have his revenge...
Teleporting, casting spells willy-nilly, ressurection, and other ways to easily beat long distance travel and weather are pretty sucky.Originally Posted by Hans
-
2010-08-29, 02:16 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2010
- Gender
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
skill checks are a standard action, as i recall, so you can only do them once a turn unless you spend an action point, and why in the world would you do that.
-
2010-08-29, 02:17 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2005
- Location
- California, USA
- Gender
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
All of these below are ancient at this point... but good references of my own games I ran or participated in:
PbP Game List:
-
2010-08-29, 02:18 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2005
- Location
- California, USA
- Gender
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
The Keep of Shadowfell newbie adventure (link) said they were minor and free actions..
All of these below are ancient at this point... but good references of my own games I ran or participated in:
PbP Game List:
-
2010-08-29, 02:20 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2006
- Location
- Beyond the flow of time
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
What action a skill check is depends on the skill. The PHB lists what action a particular use of a skill takes. Typically, knowledge checks are free actions, and the rest vary greatly.
-
2010-08-29, 02:21 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2005
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
Some are statted out in the Creature Catalog. Others aren't really mentioned in the books. The easiest way is to go to something like the Dark Sun wiki, or an unofficial conversion, and see it there.
Alternatively, the Dark Sun Novels tend to include animal life, and might be an easier way to learn the setting.
-
2010-08-29, 02:21 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2010
- Location
- in the playground.
- Gender
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
Kes'Treckles are birds, look a bit like buzzards, kanks are used as mounts and herd like cattle, they are used for their nectar, too. They look like large ants. Mekillots are huge, and used to pull huge loads, they resemble beatles (by Brom's paintings, mekillots with weird ears just dont fit), and inixes are swift lizards used for mounts. There are some others... I'd say to go to Athas.org and look around there, a lot more fluff than you'll find in the Dark Sun campaign guide.
Pic of some critters:
Spoiler
And some more:
Spoiler
Original Mekillot:
Spoiler
Original kank:
Spoiler[IMG][/IMG]Last edited by Lhurgyof; 2010-08-29 at 02:31 AM.
Originally Posted by Hans
-
2010-08-29, 02:27 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
Keep on the Shadowfell was released before the core rulebooks. Consider the PHB/DMG to be errata although the other PHB books contain errata on previous books as well.
Creatures are located in the Dark Sun creatures book sold separately.
-
2010-08-30, 01:21 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2005
- Location
- California, USA
- Gender
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
Anymore general information about Dark Sun? Just about to dive into making encounters for the group so figured I'd try one last post to ask
All of these below are ancient at this point... but good references of my own games I ran or participated in:
PbP Game List:
-
2010-08-30, 01:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
- Location
- MONSTER. VAULT.
-
2010-08-30, 02:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2010
- Location
- NE Tennessee
- Gender
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
My group is going to be starting a DS campaign sometime in the not-so-near future, and I'll be DMing. My suggestion for gaming would be to take the published adventure, the bloodsand arena adventure (google it to get a free pdf of it), and the encounters in the DSCS book and mix and match them for your own adventure. At least that's what I'm going to do. I'd wait until the creature catalog comes out before diving into a campaign (it's being released tomorrow, probably already available at your FLGS). The Marauders of the Dune Sea (or whatever it's called) isn't considered good because it's just a desert-based dungeon crawl with loads of magic items and (I've read) errors like horses on one map, an underground river and lots of magic items. Nothing wrong with a brief dungeon crawl to get the characters up in level, just don't make it standard fare for the campaign.
DS is very different from other settings and it should be played that way. Don't allow any races / classes / monsters that aren't laid out in the campaign setting or creature catalog. (Also use the DS names like half-giants / dray, etc. instead of the core equivalent). Emphasize the slavery, politics, racial fluff changes and harsh world aspects to good effect. Noble houses fighting amongst themselves, templars vying for power in the ruler-less Tyr, desert marauders attacking merchant caravans, the Veiled Alliance working to eliminate defilers, etc.
I hope this helps, not sure if it's exactly what you were asking for.Emongnome
-
2010-08-30, 07:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2010
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
- Gender
-
2010-08-30, 08:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Hastings, MN
- Gender
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
Hooks? I was under the impression that if you played in Dark Sun, you didn't have adventures. You just spent each day struggling to live and see another wretched day, until finally you are mauled by the local fauna, have your lifeforce sucked out by a defiler, are beaten to death by your slavemaster's whip, or just outright die of thirst. And then the halflings fight each other to the death over who gets the first cut of meat from your dessicated corpse. And then the buzzards fight with each other over who gets to eat the dead halflings.
As for my opinion, I generally don't like Crapsack Worlds on principle, since those settings deliberately try to make it so you can't be a Lawful Good or Good person. You need to be out and out Evil or at least the bastardly side of Unaligned in order to just live.Last edited by Archpaladin Zousha; 2010-08-30 at 08:15 PM.
"Reach down into your heart and you'll find many reasons to fight. Survival. Honor. Glory. But what about those who feel it's their duty to protect the innocent? There you'll find a warrior savage enough to match any dragon, and in the end, they'll retain what the others won't. Their humanity."
-
2010-08-30, 08:23 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2010
- Location
- West Wales
- Gender
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
Dark Sun's world of Athas is a hrash, yet beautiful campaign with a lot of creatures that, before Dark Sun, were found nowhere else. One of the most important Dark Sun game mechanics, due to, ooh, I don't know, most of the established game world being a fricking desert in its various varieties, is the tracking of water. Water is darned important. Also important is the fact that metal is incredibly rare, and so even having a rusty iron dagger on your belt is a really good way to say "Hey, kill me and take my stuff!"
Creature wise, some of the nastiest creatures were not things like beasts of burden (Mekillots are quite nasty, it's true, but only under certain circumstances) or the big beefy predators (like the Braxat, which was kind of a dumb, heavily plated ogre substitute)... no, it was the more subtle and nasty monsters, like the Belgoi (look like toothless, pale humanoids, but, due to their psionic talents... oh, quite a lot of monsters are psionic, btw... they can, when run properly, TPK in less than three nights of travel.)
Even the races are different. Halflings, for example, are cannibals, and elves are untrustworthy, thieving nomads. Half-giants are the best hands-down, though. Half their alignment is fixed forever, half changes depending upon who impressed them the most the day before.
To sum up Dark Sun: Everything is against you, you're boned, but somehow you still try to stay alive. Because everyone else is trying too.Pembrokeshire: A place where madness is an aid, not only to gainful employment, but continued existence.
"Wizards... the class everyone whines about, but I destroy whenever I feel like it"
- Darkpuppy, on Wizards in his DnD games.
Vale of Shadows OOC
Vale of Shadows IC
All The Kings Men IC (DEAD)
All The Kings Men OOC (DEAD)
-
2010-08-30, 08:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
There are no 'happy endings' on Athas. You may have lived another day, you may have made another handful of gold, but saving your group's and employer's lives cost the village to the west theirs, with one enemy killed you just made 2 more, and in the grand scheme of things, everything still hates everything else and the world's absolutely no better than it was before.
-
2010-08-30, 11:20 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2006
- Location
- Unfriend Zone
-
2010-08-31, 12:37 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2010
- Location
- in the playground.
- Gender
-
2010-08-31, 09:03 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
- Location
- MONSTER. VAULT.
-
2010-08-31, 09:09 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
- Location
- Imagination Land
- Gender
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
-
2010-08-31, 11:23 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- San Antonio, Texas
- Gender
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
-
2010-08-31, 01:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Hastings, MN
- Gender
Re: [4e] Your thoughts on the Dark Sun campaign
Could you give a basic rundown of what these pretty durn weird things were, for those who haven't read the novels, please?
"Reach down into your heart and you'll find many reasons to fight. Survival. Honor. Glory. But what about those who feel it's their duty to protect the innocent? There you'll find a warrior savage enough to match any dragon, and in the end, they'll retain what the others won't. Their humanity."